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BACKGROUND: It is widely recognized that migrants are generally healthy upon arrival, but for several reasons, a longer length of stay abroad can have detrimental effects on health. Empirical evidence suggests the use of different comparison groups (natives in the destination country; co-nationals in the origin country) to analyse migrants' health, depending on research aims and data availability. OBJECTIVE: Using data from two nationally representative surveys, the Italian survey Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens (2011-2012) and the Albanian Living Standard Measurement Survey (2012), this study aims to (1) analyse health differences between migrants abroad and non-migrants in their origin countries, focusing on the Albania-Italy migration corridor; and (2) assess health differences among Albanian migrants living in Italy according to their length of stay. METHODS: We apply propensity score matching analysis to compare health outcomes between the two groups and use logistic regression models to investigate the effect of the length of stay in Italy on migrants' health. RESULTS: Our findings show that migrants exhibit poorer health compared to their co-nationals in the origin country and, in line with previous studies, that longer residence in Italy is associated with health deterioration. CONTRIBUTION: This study is the first in Italy to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between migration and health. It does so by adopting a comparative home/host country perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children of immigrants are generally disadvantaged in terms of educational outcomes in most European countries and this remains true even after controlling for their socioeconomic status. Factors affecting the long‐term educational careers among children of immigrants and natives have been broadly investigated in the literature, although limited attention has been paid so far to the role of subjective well‐being in this context. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by analyzing how subjective well‐being in the school and family context is related to objective school outcomes of immigrant and native children residing in Italy, after controlling for several relevant socio‐demographic factors. We use rich and unique data from the 'Integration of the Second Generation' survey carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) in 2015, that has not been used to analyse this relationship so far. The national representative sample includes 68,127 students interviewed in both lower and upper secondary schools. Around 47% of them are immigrant children without Italian citizenship. Our results show that subjective well‐being is positively correlated with school performance, but well‐being at school is much more important for immigrant students' achievements, as compared to their native peers, especially in the lower secondary school. The same result does not hold for well‐being in the family domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Albanian migration to Italy represents one of the most intense and iconic East‐West migration flows of recent decades and a paradigmatic case of intra‐Mediterranean migration. This paper uses a unique data set collected by the Lombardy region's Observatory of Integration and Multiethnicity in 15 annual cross‐sectional surveys over the period 2001–2015. Analysis of this data set enables us to address three questions: first, what are the main factors influencing the labour market performance of Albanian migrants in Lombardy compared with other migrants? Second, what were the differential effects of the post‐2008 economic crisis on migrants' employment stability? Third, were there any significant gender differences in labour market profiles and outcomes? Our main finding is that Albanian migrants have a lower probability of (long‐term)unemployment and irregular employment and higher probability of employment compared with other migrants, an effect that is partially attributable to the different structural composition of the Albanian migrant group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within a framework of increasing ethnic diversity of developed countries' population, a growing body of migration literature has focused on migrants' health. Nonetheless, although ageing is a major demographic trend of western societies involving both natives and migrants, older migrants remain a relatively under-researched group so far. In Italy, despite the increasing incidence of migration on total population, its fast ageing process, and the acknowledged difficulties that migrants face in becoming full members of the Italian society, thus far, very little is known about the migrant population approaching old age. Our study focuses on the main protective and risk factors of health in later life using a unique dataset from the 'Social condition and integration of foreign citizens' (SCIF)' survey conducted by ISTAT between 2011 and 2012. Our findings show that a number of variables related to both the migration process and living conditions in Italy are important determinants of self-rated health, stressing the necessity to design and implement tailored policy responses and services that address migrants' vulnerabilities in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the general framework of 'lifestyle migration', the paper explores three materialities associated with the arrival and settlement of British, German and Dutch later-life migrants in the Italian region of Marche, a relatively new 'frontier' region for international retirement migration. The first is about the aesthetics of landscape and the scenic and emotional qualities of the physical and social environment. The second concerns 'home', where we examine house types, property location and home-making practices in terms of 'authenticity', material objects and the cultivation of land for productive purposes. The paper's third thematic focus is on consumption patterns. Most of the 69 participants interviewed for this study hanker after what they perceive as a simpler, more genuine way of life, in tune with the surrounding mixed-farming agricultural environment and distinct from other regions where tourism has taken hold. Many grow their own produce, including some who have small vineyards and olive groves. They enjoy shopping in local markets, eating out in inexpensive local hostelries, visiting museums and cultural festivals, and exploring the many pretty villages and historic towns of the region. The participants embody later-life migration as 'active ageing', but those who are older and/or frailer must consider, often reluctantly, the reality of a less-active and more isolated life in the Italian countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the social wellbeing of older migrants in Italy, an important yet neglected topic in the Italian political and scholarly debate. Knowledge about the lived experience of loneliness and its perceived causes was gathered by means of 34 indepth interviews with Albanian and Moroccan migrants aged 50 and above living in the Marche region. Our findings show that the participants are surrounded by family and are largely satisfied with the contact they have with relatives; this protects them from social isolation but not from loneliness. Although they rarely express this to their spouse and friends (men) or their children (men and women), feelings of loneliness are widely experienced among the participants. The root of their loneliness largely relates to a lack ofmeaningful relationships with non-related age peers - having a chat, remembering old times, socialising with others when family members are busy, talking about intimate matters they cannot or will not share with relatives - which supports the argument of loneliness scholars that different types of relationships serve different functions and fulfil different needs. Having more contact with people outside the family circle, especially with co-ethnic peers, could reduce these feelings of loneliness substantially, but factors such as discrimination and lack of Italian language proficiency, free time, financial resources and nearby contact facilities are hindrances. These factors offer clues for public loneliness interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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